How Money Is Swirling Around High School Hooper LaMelo Ball And The Big Baller Brand

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LaMelo Ball, the brother of Los Angeles Lakers guard Lonzo Ball, is now playing high school basketball at SPIRE Institute in Ohio and helping to generate revenue streams for his family's Big Baller Brand. (AP Photo/Liusjenas Kulbis, File)

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In the past two decades, the prestigious Hoophall Classic at the Naismith Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., has treated fans to a Who's Who of future NBA stars, including Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Ben Simmons and Jayson Tatum.

One of the main attractions at this year's event, which begins on Thursday, was to have been LaMelo Ball, the youngest brother of Lakers point guard Lonzo Ball and the son of loquacious basketball father LaVar Ball.

LaMelo surprised the basketball world in November when he enrolled at SPIRE Institute, which features a sprawling 170-acre campus in Geneva, Ohio, after playing professionally overseas in Lithuania with his middle brother LiAngelo Ball, and also playing in his father's Junior Ballers Association. Ball's family has maintained LaMelo never received any money from those games.

Had the youngest Ball appeared at the Hoophall on Saturday as scheduled, it likely would have been quite a scene with fans asking for autographs and his famous father drawing attention as well. That is what has transpired this year when SPIRE and the Ball family played to thousands of fans from Virginia to Ohio to Arizona. The Hoophall game would have appeared on ESPN+.

But when Greg Procino, who organizes the games at Hoophall Classic, received a request for an appearance fee in exchange for having Ball and SPIRE play at the event, Procino balked and SPIRE opted to go elsewhere. Procino said no one from the school or basketball program made the request, but at that it came from an outside "consultant." Procino said this was the first such request he has received in 10 years of organizing games at the event.

"The school/program did not request money," Procino wrote in an email. "An outside 'consultant' who requested the change in terms did have certain financial requests. We did not pay them to participate and SPIRE decided not to honor the original agreement for Hoophall Classic. We replaced SPIRE with The Patrick School after the final conversation took place. Games are being cancelled with Spire unless the terms are acceptable to the outside consultant. " Procino said SPIRE played at the Hoophall West event in Scottsdale, Ariz., in December, but that no appearance fee was requested for that event.

A source close to SPIRE said Alan Foster, who serves as the the Ball Sports Group's managing director, is the "consultant" and that he requested $10,000 from the Hoophall. "Alan made certain requests and said LaMelo would not be playing if those requests weren’t met," the source said.

Foster did not respond to several phone messages, texts and emails requesting comment.

High school basketball teams typically don't receive outright payments to appear at the Hoophall or other such events, although their travel and hotel expenses are often covered. Jeff Orloff, the Chief Operating Officer of SPIRE, said he was made aware by the Hoophall that financial requests were discussed with the consultant and said the school was reviewing it internally. He said SPIRE does not condone such behavior.

"We have not and did not and will not ask anybody to pay us to play," Orloff said in a phone interview.

He added: "We're not represented by Big Baller Brand in any way so any conversation or deal outside of anything I would have done, we're not involved with. So if there was a conversation to anybody representing that they were SPIRE and wanted to be paid, we had nothing to do with it."

BIG NEWS - FloHoops partners with @SPIRE_Institute to stream select Spire, @MELOD1P games LIVE and on-demand this season.

SPIRE is not a member of the Ohio High School Athletic Association, but Tim Stried of the OHSAA said, "Our schools have free reign during the regular season to play anybody under any financial agreements that the two parties work out.."

Still, there is money swirling around LaMelo Ball and his association with the Big Baller Brand, which now has several revenue streams, including Big Baller sneakers and other gear; the Facebook show "Ball in the Family," for which the family was paid "millions," ESPN reported in 2018 via sources; and, most recently, lives treams of SPIRE games. The Ball Sports Group in November entered into a partnership with FloSports Inc. to live stream five SPIRE games featuring LaMelo, beginning with one on Tuesday (today) at Brush High School in Ohio. FloSports Inc. agreed to pay $5,000 per game, according to the contract which was signed by Foster.

"The Greatest Show in high school sports has been picked up by FloHoops," Lavar Ball said in the press release released Monday. "FloHoops is the global leader in elite high school basketball coverage and combined with SPIRE and Melo - it makes a perfect fit."

(Full disclosure: I contribute as a freelance writer to FloHoops.com.)

For his part, Orloff said he knows nothing of a contract between Big Baller Brand and FloHoops involving SPIRE, and said SPIRE owns its live stream rights and FloHoops will simply promote the school on the live streams but not pay the school.

"The game is sold out," Brush athletic director Robert Atwood said by email, adding that he was not asked to pay an appearance fee of any kind to Big Baller Brand."We sold tickets to students, families, and staff, then opened it up to the public and the game sold out in 5 minutes. Between 9am and 9:12 a.m. on Friday, there were 500 clicks on the link to buy a ticket. Our team is currently undefeated so there is excitement about our team, but with SPIRE coming here the excitement has grown even more."

Given that the Ball Sports Group will now be profiting off of LaMelo's high school games, it's hard to imagine how he might maintain any semblance of amateur eligibility he might have previously had. LaMelo has said he hopes to play in college next year (and has picked up several scholarship offers), although a year in the NBA G League before potentially entering the NBA in 2020 seems like a more viable alternative. The G League recently announced it would pay select high school players $125,000 beginning in 2019-20, and Ball would seem like a perfect candidate for that route.

"As for maintaining his amateur status, I think that ship has sailed," said Bob Dorfman of Baker Street Advertising.

When Ball arrived at SPIRE in November, his father proclaimed his son could help fill the void in Ohio left by the departure of LeBron James to the Lakers.

"Since LeBron left, I brought you a Ball boy," he told reporters.

After spending time in cold and dark Lithuania, LaMelo said he wanted to re-enter the high school world. His father had taken LaMelo, who by then had committed to UCLA, out of Chino Hills (CA) High School in October 2017 to home school him before taking both of his younger boys off to Lithuania. Most recently, he went on a Big Baller Brand tour of Europe.

Ball is currently receiving independent tutoring and help with his online work from Tony Tucker, who is employed by Grand River Academy. LaMelo is not enrolled in Grand River as a student, sources said.

As for life in Ohio, LaMelo told Deadspin this month, "It’s cool. It’s not hard to get used to it at all.”

Orloff said it's been "terrific" having Ball at SPIRE.

"He is a really great young man," he said. "He has been both on and off the court, he's been a pleasure to be around. I'd love to have 100 kids just like Melo."

There is no denying the hype around Ball, even though much of it obviously fueled by his father and the Big Baller Brand.

His games with SPIRE are already YouTube hits. Highlights of SPIRE's Dec. 3 victory over LeBron James' alma mater, St. Vincent-St. Mary in Akron, Ohio, has already received over 450,000 views on YouTube.

"When LaVar came, he asked for security, so security and the athletic director walked him in, and everybody stopped and turned," said Jeremy Treatman, who organized the game."Everybody sitting in the first bowl gave him a big ovation. It was definitely entertainment. People were definitely interested for sure."

Treatman said he has occasionally paid appearance fees in the past, but that nobody associated with Ball or SPIRE asked him for one for the game, for which he sold about 2,000 tickets in a 5,000-seat venue in Canton, Ohio.

"It was definitely a profitable game, but it was not in my top 30, 50 in my life," he said. "It wasn't bad."

Treatman said the games were not as successful as the four he promoted involving James in high school, or others involving Dajuan Wagner and O.J. Mayo.

"I've had 10 events with 10,000 or more people, so it was nothing like that," he said. "Now I wasn't sure what to expect because it happened very last minute because Oak Hill had dropped them and I had just reached out and we were able to make something happen pretty quick."

Oak Hill Academy, the famous high school program that produced Carmelo Anthony, Rajon Rondo and Michael Beasley, among others, was one of several high-profile high school teams to cancel games with SPIRE this year because LaMelo had played professional basketball. La Lumiere in Indiana also cancelled a game with SPIRE.

"I just told them, ‘We can’t jeopardize our school and our association and our affiliation with conferences,” Oak Hill coach Steve Smith told The Washington Post. “They understood. I said we can play them if [Ball] doesn’t play, but they weren’t willing to do that.”

Still, some coaches who have played SPIRE this year said their players benefited from the experience. Richard Mason, who coaches Life Christian Academy in Virginia, said his players received additional Division 1 scholarship offers after playing SPIRE before 2,000 fans Dec. 5 at Virginia State University. SPIRE won 91-79.

"Yeah, it helped them," he said. "Since that game, all my kids have been offered, all the way from Georgetown to Maryland to Rutgers to Wichita State because the game went viral. I already knew my kids could play. Now you get a chance to see my kid play against maybe the best player in the country [in LaMelo].

"There's not a player in America better than that kid," Mason, who roomed with Danny Manning at Kansas, added of Ball. "He's better than his older brother."

Mason said he was scheduled to play SPIRE before Ball arrived in November and he was not asked for an appearance fee.

"No, no, I wouldn't jeopardize my kids' eligibility," he said.

The LaMelo Ball hype is real, guys. LaVar and LiAngelo are both also here at Virginia State University for LaMelo’s HS game with Spire Institute vs Life Christian Academy. pic.twitter.com/wcazatKfjY

In addition to boosting the Big Baller Brand, Dorfman of Baker Street Advertising said the livestreams and videos of Ball should help NBA talent evaluators decide whether he is a future NBA player.

"On the positive side, this gives LaMelo more game exposure, which has been limited since he’s been playing in Lithuania, and will not be playing in the NCAA," Dorfman said. "The more we can see him play, the more we can determine if this kid is real NBA material or not—which has been a challenge given his dad’s incessant hyping.

"Given that, it's been very hard to take the Big Baller Brand seriously, and ultimately it’s success hinges on how well the Ball boys perform in the NBA."